Junior High Camp

Register Online beginning Feb. 1

It is difficult to capture in words the incredible impact of Junior High Camp. Campers and staff say it is the place where they are at their best – most adventurous, most excited, most connected to others, most themselves, and that they have more fun than they thought possible every year they attend.

Camp is structured around a creative program of workshops and activities. Unlike many other camps, Rowe JHC offers campers the freedom to choose how to spend their time and the opportunity to develop and lead activities of their own. At night, there are all-camp performances, amazingly energetic dances, outdoor games, and other celebrations. Some of the most significant moments happen during long talks in cabins and late-night raids.

Campers discover the importance of spirituality and ritual in chapel, where they create meaning by expressing thoughts and feelings aloud. Each night a specific theme – such as family, sexuality, nonviolence, gender, or friendship – gets explored in a supportive, sacred space. The mood ranges from joyous to sorrowful and back to joyous again. They laugh together and help each other through hard times, creating together a powerful and loving community.

Each night after chapel, back in the cabins, each person checks in with cabin mates. This process builds trust, and the cabin often becomes a family away from home. Young people are encouraged to be themselves, to take risks, and speak from the heart.

Junior High Camp inspires a focus on community, growth, and total silliness. As young people come to believe in themselves, they see the possibilities for changing the world, and camp becomes a model for connection, for peace, and for greatness. Space usually goes fast, so sign up right away.

Vanessa Carlisle came to JHC as a staff member in 2000 and had the sudden realization that although she’s a California baby, she belongs at Rowe. She is a writer and performer, the Writing Program’s Coordinator at Wheelock College, and a composition instructor at Emerson College in Boston. She has worked in camps much of her life and has also been an after-school program director, tutor, advocate, and youth group leader. She’ll always dance if there’s music, and usually she’ll dance even when there’s none.

Rowe has never been far from Ben Schnare’s heart ever since he first attended Junior High Camp at the age of 14.  He was so thoroughly blown away that he has returned to Rowe almost every summer since. In April Ben will graduate from Hampshire College, where he designed a course of study to include clinical psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and blacksmithing. He is currently researching connections between masculinity and aggression. Ben is a fervent baseball fan and an avid science fiction reader who loves to laugh heartily whenever he has the chance.